In what is best described as a back-and-forth chaotic situation, Ohio Health announced Thursday morning that they were cancelling surgeries.
The announcement comes amid an uptick in hospital stays for COVID-19 patients. According to the state of Ohio, more than 5,500 people are hospitalized across the state due to the pandemic.
Central scheduling and those in charge of scheduling patient surgeries begun calling patients Thursday morning to break the news.
Two weeks ago, the health network, which consists of Riverside Methodist Hospital and Grant Medical Center, among other area centers, announced they were cancelling all non-life threatening surgeries that required an overnight stay, and that the hospital network would evaluate on a weekly basis as to when they would resume scheduling.
A week later, the hospital started scheduling those who had surgeries cancelled just a week prior for mid-December.
Now, today, the organization has announced that all non-life threatening surgeries that require an overnight stay are cancelled until at least mid-January next year, according to central scheduling at Riverside.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said that he has left the decision up to individual hospitals to make the call on whether to move forward with surgeries or to postpone them. This is different from the Spring, when he put a stop to all elective surgeries for several weeks.
